Honestly, I don't care for backwards compatibility that much. For the most part, when I finished a game or move on in the sports seasons, I'm done with them. I thought backward compatibility for the PS2 and Xbox would be awesome ... until you are reminded how much better the technology is in the new system.

No backwards compatibility would really suck. I have a few 1st Gen xbox games that i still play from time to time (KOTOR 1 and 2, Baulder's Gate 2 etc) Not to mention games that they are currently supporting with online functionality that you wouldn't be able to play (Halo 4,BLOPS etc). However nothing in the linked article even hinted at non-backwards compatibility and nothing anywhere else has even guessed as to weather or not it would be available.

As a side note I wonder how they are going to handle game saves, DLC, achievement scores, and XBLA games when moving to the next generation.

I don't understand why backwards compatibility is so much of a hassle for the game companies to do. Maybe LA could shed a little light on why, but in my head I would think it would be fairly simple and straight forward. I can still use software from 10 years ago on my Mac and my PC so why can't game companies get their software to be backwards compatible?

I don't understand why backwards compatibility is so much of a hassle for the game companies to do. Maybe LA could shed a little light on why, but in my head I would think it would be fairly simple and straight forward. I can still use software from 10 years ago on my Mac and my PC so why can't game companies get their software to be backwards compatible?

I have the same wonder. With the switch to the HD generation of consoles it was not as much of an issue and it will be for this next gen for all the reasons i put above. Before you didn't have all of this downloadable content and money tied up in the previous system. Are they going to just make you to re-download all of your old arcade games on the new console? How about the saved games? And the games on demand. Games on demand and arcade games should be the easiest if its going to use the same marketplace. I can only speak for xbox. I have no idea how the PS3 does their stuff.

Honestly, I don't care for backwards compatibility that much. For the most part, when I finished a game or move on in the sports seasons, I'm done with them. I thought backward compatibility for the PS2 and Xbox would be awesome ... until you are reminded how much better the technology is in the new system.

If Xbox is (as planned) going BluRay in he next console, backward compatibility could b more trouble than its worth.

Good point. Blu-ray players are backward compatible with DVDs. Someone correct me on this but i believe the HDDVD was only an ad-on drive for the 360 and not what the games were printed on. If this is the case it could still be possible

Good point. Blu-ray players are backward compatible with DVDs. Someone correct me on this but i believe the HDDVD was only an ad-on drive for the 360 and not what the games were printed on. If this is the case it could still be possible

^^^this counts as whining

The HDDVD drive is an external add on. I have several HDDVDs still. They are quite cheap on Amazon now--shocker I know.

Good point. Blu-ray players are backward compatible with DVDs. Someone correct me on this but i believe the HDDVD was only an ad-on drive for the 360 and not what the games were printed on. If this is the case it could still be possible

Blu ray drives were MADE backward compatible by adding a second laser. It is not inherently backward compatible. HD DVD drives were backward compatible with DVD, as they used the same laser. Then it's just a matter of decoding the mpeg2. Blu Rays and HDDVD use H.264 and VC-1 for compression so mpeg2 had to be included to decode DVDs. Anyone upgrading to Windows 8 may have noticed that DVD movies no longer work unless you add an Mpeg2 decoder, because Microsoft has dropped support.

Backward compatibility is not worth the money for most companies, the reason being that you either have to emulate the old hardware in software, which results in a lot of technical issues or you have to include hardware that will allow old games to play natively on the new console, which increases the price of the console. But most people buying the new console won't play old games on it, and there's no financial updside for the hardware maker. Developers don't want to have to support old games on new consoles, so chances are some of those games won't play right anyway. I suggest just holding on to your old console to play those old games, so you get the exact experience that was intended.

Blu ray drives were MADE backward compatible by adding a second laser. It is not inherently backward compatible. HD DVD drives were backward compatible with DVD, as they used the same laser. Then it's just a matter of decoding the mpeg2. Blu Rays and HDDVD use H.264 and VC-1 for compression so mpeg2 had to be included to decode DVDs. Anyone upgrading to Windows 8 may have noticed that DVD movies no longer work unless you add an Mpeg2 decoder, because Microsoft has dropped support.

Backward compatibility is not worth the money for most companies, the reason being that you either have to emulate the old hardware in software, which results in a lot of technical issues or you have to include hardware that will allow old games to play natively on the new console, which increases the price of the console. But most people buying the new console won't play old games on it, and there's no financial updside for the hardware maker. Developers don't want to have to support old games on new consoles, so chances are some of those games won't play right anyway. I suggest just holding on to your old console to play those old games, so you get the exact experience that was intended.

I could be wrong, but because I still put a decent stock in what the PS3 has underneath it's hood I would like to think that the PS3 would be a major **** to emulate. I remember hearing PS2 emulation was near impossible without the GPU on board, and regular xbox emulation is buggy on the 360.

Blu ray drives were MADE backward compatible by adding a second laser. It is not inherently backward compatible. HD DVD drives were backward compatible with DVD, as they used the same laser. Then it's just a matter of decoding the mpeg2. Blu Rays and HDDVD use H.264 and VC-1 for compression so mpeg2 had to be included to decode DVDs. Anyone upgrading to Windows 8 may have noticed that DVD movies no longer work unless you add an Mpeg2 decoder, because Microsoft has dropped support.

Backward compatibility is not worth the money for most companies, the reason being that you either have to emulate the old hardware in software, which results in a lot of technical issues or you have to include hardware that will allow old games to play natively on the new console, which increases the price of the console. But most people buying the new console won't play old games on it, and there's no financial updside for the hardware maker. Developers don't want to have to support old games on new consoles, so chances are some of those games won't play right anyway. I suggest just holding on to your old console to play those old games, so you get the exact experience that was intended.

I can see where it's not profitable for the console makers to make if backwards compatible. I guess with the whole backwards compatibility issue can always be rectified through PC gaming. As long as it was either made for PC originally or if someone decides to port the games over. Still kind of suck though that they can't figure out a way to make games universal on a particular platform. Or maybe they will some day.